Pax’s bladed tendrils shot outward, their edges hissing through the air. They buried themselves into the glass and steel of the SkyBridge—metal shrieking, glass splintering—as the devolved man went berserk, his Kyyr spiking wildly against the imaginary flames. Rusk leapt back, narrowly evading a storm of violent strikes. The SkyBridge shuddered, its groaning frame and severed wires lashing through the air as Pax hurled his monstrous body against anything within reach. Violence incarnate. His monstrous frame overcame a fleeing Rusk, who struggled to hold his ground against Pax’s wild thrashing.

  The floor! The Skybridge shuddered as Pax raked the floor, revealing the void beyond the flickering circuitry. The Skybridge won’t hold at this rate! His eyes went wide as the Skybridge shuddered; he staggered slightly. I can’t dodge! Rusk braced his Kyyr skin—a tendril struck him on the side, his body twisting from the force as he was sent ?hurtling through the window.

  “Agh!” Rusk bounced against the shattered window’s rim, bouncing downward, only to get caught by the grating of a maintenance catwalk that lined the sides of the Skybridge.

  “RUSK! YOU’VE RUINED EVERYTHING!” Pax roared as he emerged from the Skybridge, his chittering turning into a hiss as tendrils lunged from his back searching for their target. “I’LL PUT AN END TO YOU! TO THE ROT YOU’VE SPREAD!”

  Rusk gathered himself through the searing pain in his ribs. I have to lead him away… He swallowed iron-stained saliva as Pax’s deformed visage dragged itself through the shattered frame, tendrils tearing metal. Rusk took a deep breath—steady—and pushed himself as he lurched forward, sliding under a frantic Pax. With an awkward stumble, he clipped his shoulder against the railing and fell forward, nearly losing his footing. Pax hissed as a tendril crashed down, bending the metal as Rusk regained his footing and bolted, trying his best to lure Pax away from Veladonna and the girls. He took a painful breath as he glanced back. “COME AND GET ME YOU FREAK!” he shouted.

  Pax growled as he struggled to find a footing on the brittle catwalk. A shriek tore from his throat as a horrid warbling seized his mind—pounding into his essence, gnawing at his nerves, boiling his Kyyr. “GET OUT OF MY HEAD!” Pax roared, as black scales ground their way up his neck, erupting in jagged plates as he dug his tendrils into his neck. With a sluggish step forward, he slipped on the metal and let out a painful roar as a crimson shard emerged from the nest of scales. It shrieked and warbled as it was torn from his spine. “I NEED THIS!” Pax growled, his scales dragging the shard onto his back. “Wait there… Until I’m finished!” His head twitched violently as he hissed.

  The glowing shard warbled against the cold air, rattling in place as Pax began to charge after an escaping Rusk.

  Rusk glanced over his shoulder, the sound of claws against metal ringing louder and louder as the beastly Pax began his hunt. He looked forward, scanning. To his left there was the catwalk's railing with emergency ladders posted every couple of meters. Below a sea of boxes, a maze of things from beyond the veil. Could I lose him in the cargo? No. He’ll just sniff me out and losing track of him will get me killed, so… To his right not far, was a maintenance ladder that led to the roof of the SkyBridge. It’s either back into the cramped SkyBridge or onto the roof… Inside I could lure him away, but fighting him in a cramped space? He shook his head. Up it is.

  “RUUUUSK!” Pax roared as his tendrils reached out for Rusk.

  Rusk charged Kyyr and lunged for the ladder, pulling himself up with a fluid motion as one of the bladed tendrils tore the metal ladder to shreds as Pax lunged up, digging his claws into the metal as he chased after Rusk.

  Rusk narrowly dodged a thrashing tendril. His gaze set dead on the rising pax, his horrid face illuminated by the emergency lights that lined the SkyBridge’s roof.

  “Pax! I don’t know what the hell you’re on about, but I won’t let you hurt the girls!” Rusk shouted.

  “HURT THEM?” Pax shook his head as he stood tall, his deformed frame looming over Rusk. “I WOULD NEVER! They’re my lord’s beautiful children! I’m—I’M?! I’m simply. I? I! I—I’M SAVING THEM FROM YOU! YOU AND YOUR FILTHY INFLUENCE!”

  “What? By kidnapping them? By tearing them away from their father?!”

  “NO!” Pax growled. “You don’t understand—you’re too naive, you’re not thinking of the bigger picture! Their existence is like a blight, it brings only weakness to LORD BAYREN! AND THIS THING!” He ripped the crimson shard from the back of his neck. “IT’S A BLADE OF LORD ALVLAD! AND IT CHOSE ME! ME ONLY ME TO SAVE LORD BAYREN SO HE CAN RISE ONCE MORE! To leave this fucking cave and to return to the Higher Planuras to reign as a Calamity Lord once more. HE NEEDS THIS! So the girls must go.” Pax took a heavy step forward. “But they’ll need someone to take care of them… Yes. Someone like their father. SOMEONE LIKE ME!” he lolled his head. “And Lady Galene… yes, she’ll need to be there. Children cannot be without their mother.” He licked his deformed jaw with a long, oozing black tongue. “And a mother cannot be without a husband… yes.” He began to cackle. “Cythrallis agreed with ME! A BLADE OF ALVLAD ASTRALAR THE LORD OF LORDS!” A chittering laugh rolled from his throat.

  Rusk looked at Pax with confused disgust. Cythrallis… He glared at the glowing crimson shard. How long was that thing inside him? Since the port attack? What did it tell him? Is this plan of his—all this lunacy. Was it Cyhtrallis or Pax?

  Pax shoved the shard of Cythrallis back into the nest of scales he’d created on the back end of his neck. “Now Rusk. AS A CHOSEN EMISSARY OF THE MIGHTEST OF ALL CALAMITY LORDS I—” he suddenly leaned forward with all his weight, tendrils catching him as his jaws spread wide. “I’LL KILL YOU!” With incredible force, he lunged forward like a living arrow, slicing through the darkness.

  Rusk pulsed his Kyyr and shuffled on his feet, slipping past the brunt of the charge. The main body missed him by centimeters, but a following tendril lashed out. He barely evaded it as Pax rolled across the metal deck. Pax did not give him a moment to breathe. He lunged again, tendrils flying wild, cracking through the air like steel whips. Claws screeched as they dug into the metal, propelling him forward in a violent rush. A wave of messy, relentless strikes followed—swinging, tearing, snapping—forcing Rusk into a desperate dance as he struggled to dodge.

  CRRRNCH!

  A tendril struck Rusk hard, tearing through the simple hospital jumpsuit he’d been wearing. The blow knocked the air out of his lungs. He forced his Kyyr to refocus, catching himself mid-roll and bleeding the excess energy into the deck. He coughed sharply as he struggled to create distance.

  “I WON’T LET YOU RUN!” Pax hissed. A tendril snapped forward, slapping Rusk back as blood burst from his nose. “WHERE’S THAT FANCY FOOTWORK FROM BEFORE?”

  Rusk staggered back, his nerves shaking, his senses overwhelmed by the monstrous reality he was facing as the oppressive fire from above burned his shattered soul. “Shit…”

  KKRRRCH!

  A tendrils slashed forth, ripping through his chest. The impact sent him flying backward. His body clattered against the metal. His body bounced, leaving crimson splatters as he rolled to a stop at the edge of death and the void below.

  “You were as pathetic as predicted…” Pax scoffed. “See Cythrallis? That warbling cry of yours was for nothing.” Pax growled, lumbering toward Rusk, who was struggling to breathe, or even move, as he felt his organs slipping out through the massive pit in his chest. Pax loomed over him. “You should’ve fucked off when you had the chance Ru—”

  GRRRAAAANG—!!!

  One of the dangling cargo cranes tore sideways, its clawed end slamming into Pax with catastrophic force. The blow ripped him clean off the Skybridge, sending the chitinous monster flailing into the void.

  “RUUUUUUUSSSSK!” Pax screeched as he vanished somewhere in the dark expanse below, his fall ending in a distant, echoing clatter. Rusk, still bleeding, focused his fleeting consciousness against the overwhelming bite of death. Its frigid fangs deep in his chest as it gored what little life he had in a cascade of red.

  Amalgamation…Flashback—!

  His soul strained—he dragged in a painful breath and found himself back on his feet, completely fine. Save for his soul withering away with every forced breath. A bruise from when Pax’s tendril had torn his shirt still stung as he looked around disoriented. I couldn’t take myself further back… Ugh, my soul won’t last much longer… Amalgamation will consume me at this rate. He pressed a hand hard against his chest as he stood up. Where did he— A shrill screech tore up from the darkness below. He fell? How?

  “Rusky!” A little voice cut through the distant screaming. Rusk’s head snapped up. High overhead, riding an Endymion Setacian—Lamia? She was covered in her crystalline Kyyr, shielding herself from Bayren’s fiery aura. Beneath her, the Setacian manned a control console, its multiple legs braced wide to steady itself against the shuddering vessel.

  “Lamia?!” Rusk exclaimed. “You can’t be here! You have to get to one of the panic rooms!”

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  “What?” Lamia called down, her voice meek against the rumble of ice and fire beyond the Starglider.

  “GET TO SAFETY!” Rusk shouted as he felt Pax’s overwhelming bloodlust rise from below.

  Lamia heard him this time, but before she could answer, a roar echoed from beneath her.

  “RUUUUUUSSSSSK!” Pax bellowed as he began to rise.

  Lamia stared into the abyss as she began to whimper; she hugged the Setacian. “Do something!”

  The Setacian disengaged from the control console and pivoted, optics sweeping the penumbra. “No. We are departing. The fiend Ranger Rusk is dealing with is a threat I cannot expose you to any further. Lingering would violate my directive to protect you. But worry not, by my calculations Ranger Rusk is capable of neutralizing the threat.”

  Lamia looked down at the battered Rusk, his body cast in shadow, his face tired and filled with worry. “But he was about to get killed? Are you sure he’ll be ok?”

  “Yes. He’ll be fine. Unworthy of a soul as I may be, even I know that the unknown entity is whittling away at its own Kyyr reserves. Attrition is inevitable. Conflict will decay.” The Setacian paused as Pax let out another shrill screech as he tore through something in the darkness. “I was assigned to oversee Ranger Rusk’s training under Lord Bayren. I witnessed the endeavor of his journey. I know the hardships he’s endured have deformed that human’s soul into something… intriguing.” The Setacian’s cold voice warbled at the end, before it began to crawl along the crane's upper railing. “Let us join your mother and sister, Lady Lamia…”

  Lamia looked down at the Setacian confused by its words, but the sudden lurch in its movements forced her eyes back to Rusk. Her crimson-pink gaze was fleeting as she caught a fading glimpse of an ever-worried Rusk. Left alone to face the deranged monster that was Pax. “Beat that creepy bastard’s ass!” she shouted.

  Rusk smirked while shaking his head. “No swearing…” he mumbled as he peered into the abyss below.

  Meanwhile, above the ice—under a flaming aurora of calamity—Simon and Talas continued their violent waltz of searing frost and flame. Their movements inelegant, desperate in the face of Bayren’s Metanoia, a re-surging sense of self against his own reflection. The Imago strained, tearing at the seams as Cythrallis churned impatiently as it fought the rising fire and the incorrigible defiance of Pax below. Fire shot out from the icy abyss, a pillar of twisting fire ripping through Talas mid-flight. A grounding blaze detonated across his body, staggering wingbeats, burning as they collapsed downward toward the rising jaws of Bayren.

  Rising from the blizzard born of the collapsing mountain below, Bayren roared. His monstrous form fading, black muscle fraying into strands of fluttering black. Another set of horns had now descended along the bridge of his snout, curving downward like fangs framing his jaw. He was ascending through the frigid air, ascending on the rising palm of a faceless construct giant. Its fingers curled upward in silent reverence as it bore him high toward the scarred eyes of Fowoz. Flame unfurled from Bayren’s shoulders in wild banners, reflecting searing fire on the Imago’s shattered surface. Deep visceral cuts ruptured across the mirror rune, bleeding ominous light from the unknown reality, and in that maddening reflection, somewhere in the distant clouds of the storming reality of the Imago, a distant figure watched motionless from that mirror realm. Judgement bore into Bayren, energy rupturing the sky as the Calamity Lord collided with Talas.

  A flaming strike—a painful hold—tore into Talas’s neck! The dragon croaked, the strangled slosh of flesh, as they all tumbled in a fire cast thrashing. Reconstructed constructs erupted from the mythos; dragons, men, and things from beyond the darkest frontiers dug into Talas’s limbs, pinning the raging dragon as Bayren bit into scaled flesh. He gored Talas, horns carving through scale as flame detonated the wound. Talas shrieked in agony as Bayren began to eat him. But reprieve came quick as Simon’s graceful blossoms exploded, thorns and roses forcing themselves down the Calamity Lord’s furnace throat. Blooming white spread wide, tearing the constructs and ripping the two titans apart. Dragon and Calamity Lord were hurled in opposite directions, trailing fire and broken sky as they fell.

  The Imago is going to collapse! Simon panicked, as he began to freefall. Wind tore past him as his crimson gaze locked onto the fraying rune above. It unraveled in violent fissures, light bleeding through the seams. His senses dulled at the edges as his Kyyr thinned, pressing dangerously close to its limit. At the boundary of now and in frustra he twisted midair, looking frantically for the falling Talas.

  The dragon was not far. His wings fluttering as he struggled to reconstruct torn membranes as he flailed against gravity, his body still wreathed in Calamity’s flame.

  Remembrance of Nentes…

  Bayren’s coarse voice thrummed through the air. Simon turned to face the rising Kyyr. Above him, sky-bound constructs wove through the freezing void—blackened scales coalescing into a figure in the sky. A vision of Styx. Nentes?! Simon stared in awe and terror, His blossom armor flared and burned, petals igniting along his limbs as heat licked against the encroaching cold. He forced himself to turn away from the forming apparition and dove toward Talas, driving his Kyyr downward in a violent burst. Frigid winds howled past him, tearing at his armor as the mass of calamity constructs remembered the form of the felled dragon, Nentes. Dragon God of Ignition.

  Simon slammed into Talas mid-fall, he drove Cythrallis into him, pouring his healing Kyyr through the blade and into the Dragon God. White blossoms burst across torn membranes, spreading like frantic stitches as Talas flapped in raw, agonized panic. Each wingbeat was uneven and pained as petals fluttered through the air. Simon, struggling to hold on, stole a glance back to see the memory of Nentes wrapped in itself. His/Its vast draconic frame compressed, ribs locking like gears, wings cinching tight as blackened scales sealed into a single dreadful mass. What had once been a construct dragon was now a projectile—dense, streamlined, saturated in Calamity Kyyr. And standing atop the incarnate missile was Bayren, looking down on the flailing two with feral derision. Bayren jumped down, sliding along the side of the falling construct, his claws digging trenches into the black scales as he poured his Kyyr into the depths of the locking bones that comprised the biomechanical memory of a dragon. The false dragon roared without a sound as the construct sealed.

  Nentes. An icon of death from the First Expansion War. One of the first Dragon Gods—and a victim of Bayren Emperar. A dragon so prideful, there hath been no descendant worthy of the feared spirit since that bygone age. Infamous for igniting his very body in surging Kyyr, a living weapon, a legend burned deep into tragedies. His name alone was once an implication of death, a name that brought nothing but horror to Simon and awe to Talas. But now, the once proud dragon was nothing more than a corpse wreathed in fire, more intense than he’d ever wielded in life. His pride gone, reduced in memory to a simple weapon by the addled Bayren.

  “CYTHRALLIS!” Simon screamed into the tearing wind, his voice nearly ripped from his throat as Talas flew as fast and far as he could from the dreadful construct. “You have to release Talas!” Simon gasped, clutching onto the alien hilt as another violent wingbeat nearly threw him free. “Let Talas fully transform—do you hear me?!” The air surged with imaginary fire. “There’s no future for your plan if we die! The Imago is about to collapse!” His crimson gaze flicked back toward the falling missile of Calamity—his voice cracked. “Cythrallis, be logical!”

  Cythrallis warbled internally, possibilities rushing in and out, but time was fleeting; it had little time to process, to prepare, and in the face of a rebelling Pax and an imminent Bayren, it did what had to be done.

  “Survive as long as possible…” Cythrallis hissed, as a crimson shard erupted from Talas’s spine. The crimson shard flashed as Simon growled in pain, as the blade in his hand suddenly burned. “Simon Mere fulfill your role. Maintain the Imago… and you will be free.” With that the crimson shard melded with its bladed counterpart, and with a burst of Kyyr Cythrallis shot ripped itself from Simon’s hand and shot down into the icy void in pursuit of the rebelling Pax.

  With Cythrallis gone, Talas felt refreshing freedom as he spread his wings wide, Draconic Kyyr rising. His scales bulged and split in the air, old plates shearing off and spinning downward like shrapnel as larger, amber-gold armor forced its way through. His frame expanded violently, muscles knotting and tearing before regrowing thicker. Bones shattered and lengthened with sickening cracks—forearms stretching, claws curving farther, talons raking the starry sky as he fought the ire of gravity. The air boomed around him. His spine arched mid-air, vertebrae snapping outward in rapid succession. His body elongated, tail whipping as new mass dragged against the ether. Membranes tore between the struts of his wings—then regrew, wider, heavier, catching the wind with a thunderous snap that sent the dragon soaring higher. Layered horns burst from his crown in jagged spires, punching through flesh before sealing in a bronze sheen. His snout thrust forward, jaws overlapping as fresh rows of teeth shoved into place in grinding, razor waves. Droplets of blood scattered and burned away in the wake of his rising Kyyr. His eyes flared, blurry, wild as his glowing amber pupils refocused in the wake of Calamity. Kyyr surged in a shine of gold—displacing the cosmos; energy boiled, a halo of Kyyr erupting around the massive new Talas in a resplendent defiance.

  Simon was nearly thrown from the air as a forest of massive dorsal spikes erupted along Talas’s spine, each one punching backward through scale and reforming into serrated towers. In the chaos, Simon shot out a rope of blossoms, just barely catching one spike, the slipstream just enough to shield him from the worst of the surging winds. Talas grew larger. The drag of his immense form, slowing him, just before his wings beat once, monstrous and mighty, the membranes veined with Draconic Kyyr cracked against the sky, as the force sent the dragon surging forward.

  A form rivaling Nentes, the overwhelming Kyyr of a member of the Sagrada Acronica: Talas, Dragon God of Waves, stabilized in the air as a storm of Kyyr gathered under his wings as he rivaled the imaginary fire of Calamity’s End.

  Simon dragged himself under the cover of one of his massive spines; he wove a nest of white roses, anchoring himself to the amber-gold dragon, focusing all his Kyyr into the Imago. Talas turned to face the missile form of the Nentes construct, his Kyyr coming in waves that collided in prima esoterica against the raging Calamity Lord and his faux pet.

  “BAYRRRRRRREEN!” Talas roared as he shot forward toward the descending construct.

  Bayren roared in response as the back end of Nentes combusted, rocketing forward in a burst of energy.

  Talas grimaced, fangs glistening as Kyyr spilled from his mouth in a cascade of convulsing fire.“Waves of Ra’d va Barkhord!” He roared, the sound overlapped with a surge of Kyyr. Sound and energy braided together as a concussive rupture tore forward. The air split in visible strata, shockwaves stacking atop one another as they slammed into the Nentes construct, stripping the outer layer as strands of fire trailed across the starry sky! Blue fire exploded from within, brighter and hotter as the Nentes construct shot through the blast. Talas jaw spread wider, “Waves of STELLARIS—MAXIMA!” A second wave shot out, a compressed mass of energy shot out ahead, a resplendent weave of energy replicating waves of energy at the core of a red sun! The surge collided with the Nentes construct in a chimerical blaze of esoteric energy, bright, a flash of light as the sound barrier exploded, the atmosphere shuddering as a meeting energy cracked against reality as a crimson tear tore through both dragon and construct!

  Bayren and Talas surged past each other, unfazed by their wild Kyyr, the massive dragon dwarfing the living star as the two roared in the face of one another. Simon coughed blood inside, his Vileblood body tattered by the recoil of the colliding titans. He focused his mind on the Imago. I can afford only 6 minutes more…so by all that’s gold, hurry the fuck up foul needle…

  Cythrallis zipped through the cold, its bladed tip charged with Kyyr as it disappeared into the crumbling abyss.